


daddy's little girl

by jasondean



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Abusive Parents, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Parent Death, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 01:21:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4984354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasondean/pseuds/jasondean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s confused, upset, but he’s not trying to be offensive or rude, he’s just begging her to understand. He’s scared. So scared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	daddy's little girl

                He looks out the car window, running a hand through his hair and watching his reflection as the sun dips into the sky, casting the world in an orange glow. He still isn’t used to pulling his fingers through his hair and seeing himself with the new length. JD watches as his reflection vanishes with an oncoming shadow as the small car rides under a bridge.

                He turns back to the road, watching the world pass them by through the windshield. He doesn’t dare look at his father. Every little thing has been setting Big Bud Dean off lately, causing violent outbursts towards his only son and lots of drunk musing about “deconstructions”. JD’s gaze is directed forward, and he takes peace in the silence. None of his dad’s usual offensive rambling is meeting his ears, for once.

                _Good-bye Texas. Good-bye, Mom._

He can feel his insides twisting with a mixture of excitement and nerves as they pass a sign that reads, _Welcome to New Mexico!_ in large, white letters. It’s the first time JD’s ever really thought much about a new town. His experience with moving around and being the new kid won’t be any help to him in the realm of high school. He’s starting a semester late because of all of the preparations for his mother’s funeral and burial (He and his father flew back to her home state of Colorado for both.) and his father’s general lack of organization and alcohol intake.

                “I can’t believe Sally gave you that dyke haircut,” Big Bud Dean comments, pulling his eyes from the road to give his son a glance.

                JD shifts in his seat, looking down at his hands and fidgeting uncomfortably. He forms fists, clenching so tight that the knuckles turn white. He’s transported back to a week before his mother’s “accidental” death, where tears are running down his red face and he’s yelling. She’s confused, upset, but he’s not trying to be offensive or rude, he’s just begging her to understand. He’s scared. So scared.

                It’s a mother’s love that whispers comforting words as a blanket is draped around his shoulders and he’s pulled into an emotionally-charged hug. They always called him a daddy’s girl, teasing him for sticking so close to his father and whispering about the not-so-rare bouts of rage he showed when someone messed with his kid. But they never saw how much he struggled against his father’s grip, they never knew he was on the bottom of the list of people he could trust. JD sniffles and pulls away. Sally gives a laugh, and the sound isn’t cruel, but familiar and warm.

                Her hand reaches out to pull on an awkwardly long strand of hair poking out from JD’s hasty hair cut done with a pair of kiddy scissors. “You can’t be a boy with that mess of a cut,” she murmurs, tucking the strand behind his ear. She goes to work with shears that have barely been touched in the years since JD was born, and they sit in silence, nothing more needing to be discussed.

                “You made our daughter look like a _boy_!”

                JD hears his dad’s yelling through the paper-thin walls as clear as his own heartbeat. He cringes when he hears his mother cry. _It’s my fault._ The thought plays constantly in his mind, the sound mingling with the violent argument between his parents.

                “Look at this shit.” His dad’s muttering pulls JD back to the present, and the car swerves a bit as he reaches out a hand to touch his son’s hair.

                “Dad, road,” JD says. “Lots of people have short hair,” he says in a quiet, shaking voice, the words more to defend his dead mother than himself. Although fourteen years old, he’s still terrified at the thought of disagreeing with his father. JD doesn’t have his mom to help cover up any bruising at his hand anymore. Even the booming of his voice is enough to scare JD, reminding him of long nights trying to block out the sounds of his parents the next room over.

                “Boys and dykes,” Big Bud Dean says with a cruel laugh. “Ya like that kinda shit, Jamie?”

                JD doesn’t reply, and instead starts picking at the skin on his palm with his finger nails.

                “Jamie?”

                “It’s Jason,” JD says in a voice so quiet his father can’t even hear him over the running of the car.

                “For fuck’s sake, speak up, no one can hear you with all that—”

                “It’s Jason!” He’s yelling it. “It’s Jason! It’s Jason! It’s Jason, alright, I’m not a fucking girl!” The white hot anger is pulsing through him, threatening to choke him. It’s silent, and JD suddenly realizes the possibly grave consequences of his outburst. He sinks into the passenger seat, anger still choking his throat, so much that he almost cries. But he won’t, that’s something only reserved for appropriate occasions. Now is not one those times, he tells himself, and forces himself to not let go.

                “Jason,” his father repeats. It’s silent again for a few moments, and in the time JD foolishly lets hope fill his chest. This is the same man who cried the first time he held his daughter in his arms, the same man who used to carry his daughter on his shoulders and have tea with her imaginary friends. Big Bud Dean’s brain wasn’t always poisoned.

                But now?

                Laughter erupts from him, filling the car with dreadful noise. “Jason? What a damn riot,” he snorts. “I’m not a fucking girl!” he says, imitating his son in a squeaky, high-pitched voice. JD shuts his eyes, feeling a headache come on as he wills himself to ignore him. This is much better than getting beat, right?

                Right?

* * *

                JD begins his first day of high school at the beginning of the spring semester wearing a trench coat that covers most everything he’s insecure about, obscuring his curves that he thinks are in all the wrong places. Although it doesn’t do anything to remodel the softness in his face or shorten the length of his dark eyelashes. His dad reminds him of this as he teases him the entire way out of the house on the first day of school, giving him an earful of how ridiculous he looked with the gigantic coat hanging over his shoulders.

                His dad is the only one to call him Jamie anymore. In his new school, it’s commonly accepted among the students that his initials-made-nickname, JD, stands for Jason Dean, not Jamie Dean. Rumors fly around that he’s a delinquent who was kicked out of his last school, which somehow isolates him from his peers and puts him on a pedestal by them at the same time. After the popularity he gained from being the mysterious new kid wears off, loneliness seems to be a recurring theme in his life.

                All things must come to an end, though.

                “Hey! Sister who’s really a mister,” Big Bud Dean calls to his son as he walks through the door. Well, at least he sort of got it right. Although, JD can go without the cruel, teasing tone.

                JD walks into the kitchen to find his father putting in a tape. “Jamie, get a load of this,” he says, looking around for the remote. He goes on to recount a long process of trying to blow up a very old house in the town that had been considered a historical site until Big Bud Dean began to argue his side. “…didn’t even need that much, but sometimes you got to take some time and watch shit burn.”

                He searches for the remote until he lets out an angry, frustrated sigh. “Where’s that fuckin’ thing? Jamie, you hide it?”

                JD looks around and finds the remote control on the kitchen counter. “It’s right here, Dad,” he says with a sigh as he gets the remote and hands it to his father.

                “Great…” his dad says, his voice trailing off as he examines JD’s face. His face is tense and lips downturned into a frown, per usual, but his eyes is swollen and painted with blue and purple. “The fuck happened to you?” he asks.

                “Nothing,” JD says quickly, not wanting to delve into the fistfight that happened in the courtyard after school. A jock had discovered JD’s little “secret” while they were in the restroom together, which while completely and totally horrible, for some reason, everyone took the jock’s side. They called him words he doesn’t want to dwell on and pestered him about his “real” name, calling him a liar and a fake. And then, that white hot anger came through him again and suddenly he was pummeling the jock, not before stopping, shocked to see his bruised fist and what he was doing. The other boy got in a few good punches before they were pulled apart and JD ran home.

                “…Right,” Big Bud Dean says, still giving JD a funny look. “Anyway, I got a new gig up in a Lacrosse, Wisconsin.”

                “When are we leaving?”

                “Tomorrow.”

 

* * *

                 JD has learned how to handle himself a little better after experiencing ten different high schools, so moving to Sherwood, Ohio doesn’t faze him at all. He just has to keep his profile low until graduation, and then he’s finally free. And if everything goes to plan, he won’t just be free of high school, either. After all, JD does have some wonderful ideas that would be a fantastic good-bye to his sad excuse for a father.

                Veronica Sawyer was not a part of the plan. She leaves him breathless, staring after her bouncing brown bob as he wishes for some kind of chance with her. The day she first speaks to him, it’s like everything fits into place. He holds a conversation with someone his own age for the first time in months. He flirts with a girl for the first time, ever, and if he’s guessing correctly, she’s as taken with him as he is with her.

                JD’s mind is still reeling after having spoken with her again at the 7-Eleven. He sucks on the straw of his slushie as he makes his way back to his house, wondering how Veronica is faring at Ram Sweeney’s party. And to think, under different circumstances, they could have hung out at 7-Eleven all night. What a kick in the gut.

                He opens the unlocked door to his new house, finding his father nowhere in sight. JD finishes the last of his slushie, savoring the final slurps of the artificial blue raspberry flavor, and throws out the cup, then heads to his room to sleep. It’s not like _he_ has a party to go to, anyway.

                The next time he wakes up, it’s 2 AM and Veronica’s feet have landed on his bedroom floor. He sits up and blinks sleep away from his eyes, understandably confused. He squints, finally identifying Veronica in her signature blue as she stumbles and tries to regain her footing.

                JD gets up, really wishing he hadn’t gone to sleep in boxers and an old tank top. “Veronica, what are you doing in my room?”

                “Shhhhh!” she hushes him, taking him aback. “I’ve come to a conclusion.”

                “What conclusion?” He looks at her, slowly recognizing the way her words are slurred and her balance is off. There’s no way the homecoming party didn’t have alcohol… Although, even drunk, he couldn’t see how she possibly thought this was a good idea.

                “I’ve gotta ride you till I break you,” she says.

                “…What?”

                “I threw up on Heather. So now I’m here. Before you think I’m a loser,” she explains, steadying herself on his bed frame.

                “Veronica, I—”

                He’s interrupted by Veronica pushing him to the bed with relentless force, staring dumbfounded at her face alit by the moon and the shadows providing perfect contrast. Even embarrassingly drunk, she’s a work of art.

                He doesn’t have much time to take in the details of her face because suddenly her lips are sloppily pressed against his. He’s pressed up against the wall, Veronica straddling him as they begin their impromptu make out session. It’s messy, probably too messy to be considered any kind of hot if he were with anyone besides Veronica. At first, their noses bump and they don’t know what to do with their tongues or where their hands go. Trial and error gives them success and a steady rhythm as they move against each other.

                JD can’t think. His hands are on her back, her chest, her stomach, there’s some kind of fuzziness in his brain that keeps him from doing anything rational. He wants her.

                Veronica pulls away, trying to catch her breath. She runs a hand through her messy, tangled hair, and the look in her eyes is intense enough to almost scare him. “Fuck me.”

                And then reality comes back to him. “Veronica. I don’t know.”

                “Just do it,” she says exasperatedly, taking his hands and placing them back on her hips where her skirt has slid down and he can feel the fabric of her panties.

                “Veronica, uh—I…”

                There is no way in hell she’ll want anything to do with him when she finds out. JD’s mind, formerly populated with euphoria, has now gone into panic mode. He looks away from her, wishing he was anywhere else.

                “I want to,” he says.

                “Then what are you waiting for?” she asks, suddenly pulling down JD’s boxers without warning.

                “…I’m sorry, Veronica.”

                “I don’t get it,” she says, leaning away from him with a puzzled expression on her face.

                “It’s just. It’s just… That’s how my body is, alright?” he attempts to explain, quickly pulling his underwear back on, hoping the dark shields his blushing face. “The doc called me a girl, and he was wrong,” he says. “I get it if you want to leave,” he says, looking away from her.

                Veronica grabs his face and kisses him again, then pulls away. “Nah. I think we can figure something out, JD,” she says, giving him another sloppy kiss and trailing kisses from his face to his neck, and then pulling away to pull off his shirt. JD doesn’t object, entranced by the fact she doesn’t care, at all. She looks back to his face and smiles goofily, and it’s like they’re back in the 7-Eleven.

                “You’re so handsome,” she whispers, kissing his jaw. JD smiles, the gesture not even coming to close to show the amount of relief he feels.

                “You’re beautiful,” JD replies as Veronica leans back in to kiss him, and with the motion he gains the confidence to slip a hand into the fabric of her underwear, wondering how much she’ll remember of this in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if i really screwed up JD's personality in this! and this is like my first time writing anything like a make out scene sooo its fairly clunky oops :p


End file.
